


and I stood at a distance

by LoveLetter



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-18 07:45:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/877343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveLetter/pseuds/LoveLetter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You suck. God Stiles you suck so bad,” she choked, feeling the same urgency to run to him she had earlier that night. She was right by his side now but it still felt too far. [Post Motel California]</p>
            </blockquote>





	and I stood at a distance

**. . .**

The scent of gasoline was still thick in the air when Lydia glanced around the dark school bus. The streetlights and motel sign lit up the night enough for her to make out her friends forms, each shape and outline settling her weary bones.

The bus was full with the sounds of snores and fidgeting, but the wolves were all too exhausted to fight sleep and Allison had succumbed to it herself the second Scott’s eyes had drooped shut. 

Blinking her tired eyes awake, Lydia noticed a dim light coming from Stiles’ seat just diagonal from her. Standing up and stretching her arms, she slid next to him quietly. “Hey,” she whispered.

“Ah, shit!” he startled, lowering his voice quickly. “Don’t do that! You scared me.”

“What’s that?” she asked, ignoring his outburst and nodding towards his phone.

“Tetris,” he said. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“Why aren’t you?” she countered.

“I’m on level thirteen. These bricks are my bitch… bitches?” He scrunched his nose in consideration. “I’m too wired from all the death defying heroics tonight anyways,” he added, smiling. 

“Right,” she murmured.

“It was like a freaking Mel Gibson movie with all the explosions and paranoia,” he joked. “Or maybe I’m thinking of his real life.” 

“You’re the stupidest smart person I know,” Lydia muttered, eyes slanting dangerously. 

She hated the way he laughed things off or pretended they didn’t matter as much as they did. She was an expert at pretending but she hated the way fake looked on him.

**and I stood at a distance,  
to feel who you are,  
hiding myself in your eyes.**

“Did you just call me smart?” he teased, nudging her gently. “I always knew you were threatened by my startling intellect. That’s probably why you spent so many years ignoring my existence. Kill the enemy with indifference, right? Hey do you think that would work with the alpha pack, because the silent treatment is my bread and butter.”

“Stiles…” 

She forced herself to avert her gaze because she couldn’t look at Stiles without thinking of the way his honey brown eyes had blurred with tears, the line between his and hers just as unclear as her clouded vision. It had triggered something in her, the sight of him stepping into that puddle, the light of the flare reflecting against his skin. Now she couldn’t look at him without seeing the glow of orange flames or the shimmer of unshed tears.

“Okay fine, so usually I’m on the receiving end. But I know how it works. I can fake indifference. I’ll indifferent-iate the hell out of them,” he continued, twisting his features in focus as he spit out the awkward ramblings.

“Shut up!” she snapped. He stared at her startled, mouth slightly agape. “Just shut up,” she repeated breathlessly. 

“Rude,” he mumbled after a moment. “I thought we were past the whole, Stiles is the gum on the bottom of my shoe phase.”

Her eyes snapped to his impulsively and she saw confusion and hurt swimming in tandem. “You suck. God Stiles you suck so bad,” she choked, feeling the same urgency to run to him she had earlier that night. She was right by his side now but it still felt too far. It felt like the kind of distance that could feed a fire.

What?” He blinked slowly, brows furrowing.

“Do you seriously think you can just pretend like tonight didn’t happen, like you weren’t about to sacrifice yourself in some misguided heroic effort?” she asked.

Stiles stared wordlessly before looking around the bus at his sleeping friends. “I’m not- it… Scott’s my best friend,” he settled on after several failed attempts at an explanation.

“Yeah, I got that,” she snapped.

**and the risk that might break you,  
is the one that would save,  
a life you don't live is still lost.**

“Why are you acting all angry?” The genuine confusion in his tone made her sigh.

“Because you don’t get it,” she said quietly. “You’re smart but you can be so fucking stupid. The entire time you and Scott were walking down loser lane, remembering what it was like when you didn’t have any other friends, did you stop even once to think about the people in your life now?”

“What do you-“

“Me!” she exclaimed. “Me and Allison, and Isaac, your dad… did you even think about us? Because Scott was under the influence of some werewolf hallucinogen but you weren’t! Stiles you were ready to let yourself die because you don’t think anyone but Scott really cares about you,” she finished.

“It wasn’t like that,” he argued. 

“Take me with you. That’s what you said,” she whispered. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it, at a loss for once in his life. “Asshole,” she added after a moment. 

“Lydia, it’s- it’s not like I wanted to die, okay? I don’t. I generally like my life, awkward and terrifying instances included,” he began. “I just- it’s Scott. It’s Scott,” he repeated helplessly.

As angry and frustrated as she was, Lydia understood that. She understood that Scott and Stiles needed each other in an entirely codependent, unhealthy sort of way. She understood it in that she didn’t understand it at all and she probably never would, because to understand it would be to be a part of it. And not even Allison could scale those walls.

“Yeah,” she said. 

The air was thick with silence for several minutes before Stiles bumped his fingers against hers, so transparently deliberate that she almost rolled her eyes. But instead she push her hand back against his, sinking into the pressure the same way she had fallen against him when they had landed on the pavement after the explosion. 

“In case shoving you away from a raging fire didn’t make it obvious enough, we’re friends Stiles.” Lydia spoke softly, her eyes focused on the seat in front of her. “Scott isn’t the only person who thinks you’re somebody.”

Looking at her with wide eyes, Stiles swallowed and nodded. “I know,” he said.

“And just so we’re clear,” she began, gripping his hand painfully. “If you ever do something that idiotic again, I will kill you and then resurrect you myself. Painfully, because I can do that, got it?” she asked.

“Painful death and resurrection, got it!” he nodded hurriedly. 

“Good. Now scoot over so I can use your shoulder as a pillow. Wake me up in twenty minutes so I can go back to my seat and we can pretend this whole thing never happened.”

“Sure,” he said, shifting his body against hers until she let out a content sigh and pressed her head against his arm. She wiggled closed, turning her face into the fabric of his shirt and letting herself inhale his scent, swearing it was only to cover up that burning stench of gasoline stuck in her nostrils. Because somehow, even after everything that had happened that night, Stiles still smelled like Stiles.

**Stand on the edge with me,  
hold back your fear and see,  
nothing is real 'til it's gone.**

“Hey Lydia,” he asked quietly.

“Hmm?” 

“Thanks for saving my life. You were kind of awesome, as usual.” 

Unable to fight the smile tugging at her lips, Lydia squeezed her eyes shut tightly and clasped their hands together. “Goodnight Stiles,” she said. 

He clasped her hand back, pressing his head against hers. And finally she stopped seeing fire behind her eyelids and smelling gasoline in the air. Finally she slept soundly.

**. . .**


End file.
